Having fun etc.

Hello Ole and friends, I think Ole was right, other modelers are envious of the FUN we Z scalers are having with our CUTE trains and layouts. CUTE is the word

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, Apr 25, 2000

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Hello Ole and friends,

I think Ole was right, other modelers are envious of the FUN we Z scalers
are having with our CUTE trains and layouts. CUTE is the word that I most
often hear from people when they first see the Val Ease Central.

Ole, the certificate that I completed was indeed for what is called:
Model Railroad Engineer - Electricity, not necessarily electronics. I'll
eventually post the paperwork that I provided on my website to give you an
idea of what is involved. I was very pleased when the chief judge told me
that my file was the best that he had ever seen. He asked me if I was an
electrical engineer! The real reason that my file was so good, I suppose,
was that I provided more than they expected in order to overcompensate for
certain attitudes!

On the subject of digital cameras, I have had terrific success with the Sony
Mavica MDC-83 that my wife and I purchased last month. It takes excellent
photos and short MPEGs. The optics are super. It records the images to a
floppy disk which can be read by both PCs and Apple PowerMacs. We get 36
images to a disk in medium resolution. There is also an email format which
records a thumbnail image as well as the standard image. High resolution
will record only 1 image to the disk. Yes, we know that the future of
digital cameras is the memory stick but we like what we got.

My wife loves the camera because it allows macro photos with very good depth
of field (5 cm closest focus). She can review the photos right away and
delete the ones she doesn't want to show anybody! At the Salmon Arm train
show, she had a great time showing her photos to the other attendees.

On the subject of having to develop 40 skill sets...I am sharpening my
sketching pencils and digging out my paint brushes in preparation for the
painting of my new backdrop. I have 10 tubes of acrylic artist's paints, 2
large sheets of white heavy weight card stock for the backdrop (1 to
practice on and 1 for the final version). The card stock will be glued to
foam core in 4 - 1 meter length sections. I plan to double the height of
the present backdrop to 30 cm (12 inches)in order to include the sky and
give greater perspective.

Once again I have commandeered the dining room table for this major
construction project. Hopefully this will be the last time!